New Year, new you: Set yourself up for fitness success

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Say hello to fitness, 2016-style. The revolutionists may be out in force, clogging the treadmills with their shiny new gym membership in hand, but our Vancouver experts are all about offering tips to keep up the good work all year round.

Rebecca Johnston

Trained in dance (from ballet to jazz) including time spent with the National Ballet School and Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Johnston has followed her passion for exercise, earning instructor certifications in Barre Fitness, spin, yoga, weight training, TRX, and group fitness through British Columbia Recreation and Parks Association. She runs BeNaturallyFit, an online fitness and nutrition community (benaturally.fit).

What’s the best advice about fitness?

One of Johnston’s mentors is Lana Osborne-Paradis from Calgary’s Blast Fitness, who teaches women to change their relationship with food and exercise to find balance and encourages them to build on their strengths and not focus on the end result. So, likewise, Johnston urges people to not obsess about being thin. That helps, in her opinion, to ensure your mindset is set up for success. “If your goal is to get strong and healthy, guess what’s going to happen? You are going to lose weight and look better,” she says.

What’s the best way to start 2016 in the fitness stakes?

It all comes down to goal setting which she encourages people to do in January. Starting a journal helps to keep track of progress and plan out a fitness routine. “Honestly, it is best to get clear with your goal and to be realistic like how long it will take you to get there,” she says. “Set your goals, don’t just head to the gym; think about what you are doing and why you are doing it.”

How do you encourage people to maintain enthusiasm?

For Johnston, it’s about the combination of nutrition, mindset and fitness, which means establishing healthy habits and changing them steadily. “Too many burn out quickly after a year because they start working out five days a week and cutting calories,” she says. “This is changing too much too soon. People who have long-standing success make small incremental changes that add up to lasting results over a long time.”

Which 2016’s fitness trends tickle you?

Johnston believes there’s a growing shift from the gym to spa-style boutique fitness studios that create community because “everyone wants to be a part of a community.” Fitness apps open up the world of movement, too: “It is making fitness accessible to everybody and it is right there on our phone,” she says. While Johnston is a frequent juicer (and vegan, to boot), she adds in a caveat about the vogue for juices, fasting trends and detoxing. “I don’t believe in quick fixes. I really believe in being well rounded, being in balance and all that has to be part of a long-term lifestyle change.”

Dai Manuel

As a professional blogger (daimanuel.com) and public speaker, Manuel often describes how he morphed from an obese teenager to become a CrossFit coach and former head of a western Canadian retail chain of fitness equipment stores. He is the author of the recently published, Whole Life Fitness Manifesto.

What’s the best advice about fitness?

Manuel says that for him it was being told to do something that he loved. Finding that passion — whether it’s CrossFit, running, yoga, or skiing — is key for everybody. “You can always force yourself to do something but you can only do that for so long,” Manuel says. Hit upon something you love, and you’ll continue because it’s something that feels good, he says. Which is why he suggests to check out things like ClassPass, which allows members to try different classes and exercise programs.

What’s the best way to start 2016 in the fitness stakes?

“Do not think tomorrow is a good day, it’s today,” Manuel says. “Turn ‘just do it’ to ‘just did it.’ It is all about now.” Manuel encourages people to start making some daily habitual changes, although only do what’s reasonable and whatever you are starting, make sure it fits your existing lifestyle. “If you woke up on New Year’s Day and said, ‘I am going to take up running this year,’ and go from couch to a 5K, you can hurt yourself,” he says. “Avoid the extremes. If you try to reinvent your lifestyle for some new program or diet, you are reinventing yourself. If you can fit it into your busy lifestyle, the opportunity to succeed is far greater.” Remember, the most issue gyms deal with this month is the onslaught of newcomers, yet 90 per cent of those folk are not there any more by February 1, he adds.

How do you encourage people to maintain enthusiasm?

Ensure goals are realistic and the activity is something you love, Manuel says, and finding a community to be a part of — who can rally around you as well giving a level of accountability — is important. “Do not follow the crowd,” he says. “You have to find what it is that you really want to do and what you want to achieve, and then you will start feeling better.” Nicknamed The Moose for his running style, he confesses running is not for him and yet it’s easy to take it up because you hear stories about neighbours losing weight through the sport, for example. “The worst thing is doing something because somebody else is doing it, because if you hate it, it won’t last.”

Which 2016 fitness trends tickle you?

Manuel is keen on wearable technology, which allows people to instantly see how many steps they have walked or kilometres they have run, for example. “They can be great motivators.” Functional fitness, where people exercise muscles which will help them to carry on living good lives (squats, so you can get up from sitting; burpees to help you up from the floor) and which forms the basis of his new book, is also trending.

Catherine Roscoe Barr

Roscoe Barr graduated with a BSc in neuroscience from the University of Lethbridge. Calling on her roles as a journalist, speaker, personal trainer, fitness instructor and older adult specialist, she has set up The Life Delicious (thelifedelicious.ca), a wellness education group for entrepreneurs and professionals for their “health, happiness and productivity” that also includes wellness retreats (next one: February 19-21).

What’s the best advice about fitness?

Roscoe Barr says that she mainly follows what she’s figured out on her own, and then learning the science behind it from researchers, authors and experts. Dubbing it the anti-sedentary revolution, she believes in physical activity (exercise plus what’s defined as NEAT — non-exercise activity thermogenesis, such as doing the washing-up or jiggling your leg while working). “Just moving your body has massive benefits to your mind, brain and body,” says Roscoe Barr, “and a little goes a long way. Finding numerous ways to move your body that fit into your lifestyle, and that you like or can learn to like, and realizing the huge benefits make it easy to keep moving.”

What’s the best way to start 2016 in the fitness stakes?

“Start small, be mindful of how good a healthy lifestyle (how you think, move and eat) makes you feel, and banish the all-or-nothing mentality,” Roscoe Barr says. While she is happy to see people undertake 30- or 60-day fitness challenges, she warns about people ending up exhausted and overwhelmed by the time commitment. “If you can commit to moving your body multiple times every day in a flexible way that can expand or contract with your ever-changing schedule, obligations, responsibilities and surprises, it’s much easier to stick to a physically active lifestyle,” she says. “If you have to miss an hour spin class one day but can substitute 50 jumping jacks next to your desk, you’ve still maintained the ritual of exercising and hardwiring that habit.”

How do you encourage people to maintain enthusiasm?

Have a flexible plan, Roscoe Barr says, so “physical fitness becomes woven into the fabric of your life for a lifetime.” Like others, she sees journaling as a game-changer, allowing you to not only see patterns, such as feeling bloated after eating sugary foods, “but to consciously hardwire healthy habits using the principles of self-directed neuroplasticity ­— a fancy way of saying that repeated behaviours become unconscious habits that are hardwired into the physical architecture of our brain.”

Which 2016 fitness trends tickle you?

Roscoe Barr stamps out any talk of trends. “I believe in training yourself to think, move and eat in a way that not only makes you feel good, but helps you look good, perform better, and prioritize positivity,” she says.

Rachel Scott

“Part nerd, part creative artist,” Scott is YYoga’s director of teachers college and development and also has a BA from Columbia University and MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater.

What’s the best advice about fitness?

From gym to yoga to such things as NEAT, Scott’s main focal point is diversity. Changing up your exercise routines allow muscles to become stronger in a wide variety of ways, as well as making your connective tissue and brain healthier, too. “I went through a period a few years back where I stopped doing yoga for a year in order to get a personal trainer,” she says, “because my body had become so one-sided through only doing a yoga practice that I was becoming dysfunctional and unhealthy.”

What’s the best way to start 2016 in the fitness stakes?

Being consistent is important, Scott believes. “We get so excited and decide that we want to conquer the world of fitness in two weeks and then burn out and get discouraged,” suggesting people start small with reasonable goals every day. “Before you know it, you will be climbing the mountain.”

How do you encourage people to maintain enthusiasm?

As she puts it, the worst thing a resolutionist can do is be inflexible. “We have to give ourselves room to take two steps forward and one step back because that is really how growth happens,” Scott says. “We have to be ready to relax, to eat a piece of cake one day, to miss a class one day, and then the next day get up and start again.”

Which 2016 fitness trends tickle you?

Once again, it’s all about diversification for Scott, as well as the trend for doing more functional movements: squat, lunge, bend, twists. “I am really excited about movement and fitness towards making us healthy or more functional in our daily lives, whether we are lifting the kids or running down the street to grab the bus or making dinner.”

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New Year, new you: Set yourself up for fitness success

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